CHAPEL HILL, N.C.  The American college campus, long an oasis of scholarship and coming-of-age, is now being transformed by a more palpable force: an armada of laptops, cell phones and perpetual connectivity.

Arizona State sophomore Ashley McNamee takes a GPS-enabled walking tour of the campus.

By Emily Piraino, East Valley Tribune via AP

At the University of North Carolina here, where every building and most outdoor common areas offer wireless Internet access, sophomore Dax Varkey lugs his laptop everywhere.

In class, he takes notes on the portable computer, sometimes instant-messaging or e-mailing friends if the professor is less than riveting. In his dorm, he instant-messages his roommate a few feet away. He's tethered to his cell phone, which he even uses to call a buddy who lives one floor above him, and his iPod, which supplies music for walks between classes. (Related: Some schools have separate tech systems)

This is college life today, where students are electronically linked to each other, to professors and to their class work 24/7 in an ever-flowing river of information and communication. (Related chart: The most wired campuses)

How the schools were chosen

The Princeton Review asked 357 colleges and universities about how wired their campuses are. Among the criteria:

Can students register for classes online? Are any for-credit courses offered online? Are any courses streamed online via audio or video? Is space provided for student Web pages? Does college tuition include a computer for every student? Are computers required? Is network access available in the dorms?

U.S. colleges have been upgrading their computer systems for years, in large part to stay competitive. But the race to lure students with the most robust broadband networks and the hottest gadgets has hit a fever pitch. With many schools offering wireless Internet access anywhere on campus, colleges as a group have become the most Internet-accessible spots in the USA.

Students say they revel in fingertip-access to a boundless trove of information on the Web and the ability to e-mail professors about Dante at 2 a.m. and get responses the next morning.

"I always feel like I have a means of communications — in class, out of class," says Varkey, 19, a UNC biology major.

Some suggest that the anywhere-anytime access yields tangible benefits. "To compete globally, we're going to have to produce a nation of problem-solvers and analytical thinkers, and we're going to have to do it using 21st-century tools," says Ken Kay, chairman of consulting group Infotech Strategies.

Some critics say the digitization of campuses has a downside. It can distract students from learning and thinking and make it easier to cheat and plagiarize. And the push to keep pace with technology is swelling college budgets and parents' tuition bills — without evidence that it makes students more marketable or productive workers.

"It's going to get bigger and bigger, and I see a proliferating arms race," says Warren Arbogast, a tech consultant for colleges. "I see a crisis coming with the cost of education going up and up and up."

With more students shunning dorms' traditional phones in favor of wireless, some schools have begun ripping out wireline networks. Others are installing cutting-edge Internet-based phone systems. Some are giving students BlackBerrys, tablet PCs and even iPods.

Nationwide, information-technology accounts for 5% to 8% of college budgets, up from an estimated 2% to 3% in the mid-1980s, says Kenneth Green, director of the Campus Computing Project (CCP), a research group.

UNC-Chapel Hill is in the vanguard of the trend. It was ranked the fifth-most-wired campus last year by test-preparation company The Princeton Review, which publishes an annual college guide. Every UNC-Chapel Hill student is required to have a laptop, whether they buy their own or a $2,000 Dell model from UNC.

Wired competition

Dan Reed, UNC's IT chief, says focus on technology prepares students for a wired world. "You have to keep up with the Joneses," he says. "Students expect high-bandwidth information, and if you can't deliver it, you're at a competitive disadvantage."

Gazing intently at his laptop in the student union's basement, Varkey was making the most of UNC's wireless Web access one day this month: firing off instant messages, reviewing an anatomy assignment and checking his bank balance.

Just nine miles down Highway 15/501 in Durham, Duke University had been feeling a bit of a technology inferiority complex a few years ago. So last fall, it seized national headlines by spending $500,000 to give each of its 1,650 incoming freshmen a free Apple iPod digital music player.

Some Duke students are using the popular iPods to practice foreign language dialects, record scripts for theater classes or analyze music in engineering labs. Professors have been encouraged to tape lectures and post them online.

"We realized there might be some potential for a device that could get attention" and encourage innovation, says Provost Peter Lange. The school is assessing whether to continue the program.

Students in a Duke class on the history of American radio use the iPod to digitally record their own radio shows. "It's adding to students' sense of excitement about the subject," says Daniel Foster, who teaches the class.

Uses for iPods

Many students acknowledge that they use the iPod simply to listen to music. As they cross the vast lawn on East campus, they wear the telltale white earplugs whose wires dangle into iPods lodged in jacket pockets. "I'm not using it for academics," says freshman Michael Sori. "No one really is."

Nig-Yi Zheng says she's used the iPod a couple of times to record lectures when she was tired. But, she adds, "If it was up to me, I'd use (the money) for other purposes."

Some professors worry, too, that in the rush to expand connectivity, something intangible is being lost.

"Once you post lectures to the Web, it implies the face-to-face encounter of a classroom doesn't matter," says Duke history professor Elizabeth Fenn.

"There are other things I would have spent the money on," says physics professor Thomas Phillips.

Colleges began embracing Internet access in the mid-1990s, when many started wiring dorms with high-speed connections. In the past few years, some schools have turned their campuses into bubbles of Wi-Fi, or wireless, Web networks — a trend now followed by cities such as Philadelphia.

About 80% of colleges had wireless networks covering at least part of their campuses in 2004, up from 30% in 2000, a CCP survey says. About 20% have made their entire campuses Wi-Fi bubbles.

Today's freshmen tend to go off to college with a laptop. But just 6.2% of schools give students computers or mandate that they lease or buy one, as UNC does, says a 2003 survey by Educause, which promotes technology in schools.

That figure is growing. Last year, Massachusetts became the first state college system to impose a laptop requirement for freshmen at most of its schools. The mandate ensures that needy students can get financial aid to cover the cost.

Elaine Lally of Lynn, Mass., didn't buy a laptop for her daughter Meredith, a sophomore at Bridgewater State College, though the school recommended it. She was disturbed "that this is a requirement in a state school where finances are a concern."

Other colleges are straining to stand out from their peers:

• A growing number are removing their little-used landline phone networks as school commissions on long-distance service plummet.

Some, such as Morrisville State College in New York, are giving everyone in dorms cell phones and adding the monthly cost to student fees. Even though most students already had their ownwireless phones, coverage was poor in the rural area. So the school struck a deal with Nextel to boost service.

• The University of Maryland last fall gave 400 incoming MBA students free BlackBerry portable e-mail devices so they could practice prioritizing e-mails in an always-connected mode.

Jason Madhosingh uses the gizmo to communicate with classmates about group projects. "I can use it when I'm waiting to get a cup of coffee," Madhosingh says, noting that it flashes with new e-mail about every 10 minutes. "It's training me to communicate effectively in a large organization."

• Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., in 2003 replaced its landline phones with an Internet-based phone system that lets students get voice mail in their e-mail boxes. The college also sends announcements to an Internet-based screen on their dorm phone. Possibly coming to the screen: videoconferencing and grade reports.

"These are kids that have grown up with PlayStations and cell phones so we have to try to ... get their attention," says campus technology director Paul Dusini.

At UNC, it seems nearly every other student chats on a cell phone while strolling between classes on the stately campus' brick walkways.

For most undergrads, the non-stop connectivity is the fuel of college life. Online, students get homework and lecture outlines and take part in class discussions. "It makes it easier to justify skipping class," says sophomore Kristin Bedinger. She e-mails professors in the wee hours and instant-messages friends to brainstorm assignments. "I have no idea how anyone made it through college without a (PC) and the Internet," she says.

Sarah Shields, who teaches Islamic culture, says the Web can "provide a better sense" of how Muslims worldwide view key issues. Archaeology professor Kenneth Sams says e-mail "is far better than having students peck at your door at inconvenient times." It also provides a vehicle for students too shy or lazy to visit in person.

Bedinger acknowledges that instant-messaging "can be distracting from studying." During a history class in a large Wi-Fi-linked lecture hall, about 10 students used laptops. Several surfed the Web, including one who replied to e-mail and visited music and travel Web sites.

Cheating is a concern

Gadgets also make cheating easier. In 2003, several University of Maryland undergraduate business students accused classmates of using Web-enabled cell phones to cheat on a midterm. For the final exam, professors posted false responses to multiple-choice questions on the class Web site. They caught 12 students with the same wrong answers. UNC math professor Jane Hawkins, who's teaching at Duke this year, no longer leaves the room during exams and closely checks screens if tests are taken on laptops.

Some students, too, find technology's relentless hum a bit overwhelming. "I feel teachers expect you to be attached to your e-mail, and if you don't check it one day you get behind," says UNC sophomore Harmony Davies. Adds sophomore Michael Warden: "It tends to take over my life a little bit."

Donald Heller, an education professor at Penn State University, worries that heavy cell phone and instant-messaging use could produce a generation of workers "who won't develop the face-to-face communication skills needed to be successful." He frets that students who instantly flip open cell phones after a lecture "aren't spending as much time thinking about class."

Taking a stand against the onslaught is University of Michigan professor Buzz Alexander. A few years ago, he stopped answering e-mail from students in his introductory English class. "I just realized I wasn't seeing people in my office. It dehumanizes the relationship. I want to talk to them in person and say, 'How are things going?' "